Are You Ready for the Retirement Shifts?

Are you prepared for retirement shifts? Few are, because they are unaware of it.

Throughout your whole life, you were trained for everything to come. As a kid, your parents took care of the basics of life. At school, during every lesson, you were enriched with knowledge, preparing you for life.

Your first job, what happened during the first week? Training to maximize your performance in what you were hired for.

Then one day, time for retirement. Reflecting on who trained you for retirement highlights the importance of self-preparedness, inspiring you to take control of your own transition.

When life starts to be based on daily routines and nothing else, and a sort of emptiness bothers your mind, it’s the moment when retirement shifts begin to appear on your radar.

What Retirement Shifts Are We Talking About?

After decades in the corporate world, holding engaging and interesting management-level positions, retirement was inevitable. Finally, I could dedicate time to myself and my family, doing what I liked without any superiors setting the working methods and rules.

Endless vacations! What a change.

The first couple of weeks were just fantastic. No time schedule to comply with. No stressful mornings with traffic jams. Just easy going. But after a while, something happens. I use to describe it with the metaphor of peeing in your pants.

At first, it’s warm and cozy, but pretty soon it feels cold and uncomfortable. Instinctively, you change your pants. And exactly the same happens after your first weeks of retirement. Retirement shifts become something you pay more attention to.

You never got trained for this, and you have to figure out how to make it all happen on your own. Understanding the four stages of retirement is essential because it helps you navigate each phase intentionally, making your retirement more fulfilling and aligned with your goals.

Vacation period

This is the first phase of your retirement. Your “endless” vacation starts. You wake up when you want. Nice and calm breakfast with family. Meeting friends. Perhaps travel to places still pending on your to-do list.

Life is joyful and stress-free. Fantastic!

As with all vacations, after a while, you know it all, and there is not much more to add. Slowly, your “vacation” transforms into a daily routine. What to add?

Identity loss

Where are all the meetings with colleagues, and the challenging tasks to solve at work? You are even missing your boss, who demands more from you.

All your experience, knowledge, and skills that you have accumulated over the years are put on hold. A kind of emptiness appears. You feel that you are losing your identity.

This phase, we all go through. Some admit it, while others just feel lost and try to hide it. But it’s there, and it’s a good sign, because it locks you into a retirement shift thinking.

Experimentation

What about learning French, which you had on your to-do list for years? Should I take my painting stuff out of the closet and start painting again? Maybe your partner invites you to join a yoga course together.

You name it. All you do in what I call the experimentation phase aims to find a new identity; your retiree identity.

Perhaps you find it, and that’s fine.

What if your old hobby of painting turns out to be something you have a real talent for? You do some paintings that you give to friends who truly admire your talent.

This experimentation phase could be a door-opener to something else.

Reinvention of retirement

You are on your way to finding a meaningful purpose in retirement. Could it be possible to find people out there who are willing to pay for your paintings?

“But I don’t know anything about doing business, and definitely not online, where most entrepreneurs are hanging out nowadays.”

Doubts combined with ideas and dreams are now a daily thought spinning around in your head. You’re now in the reinvent phase.

Retirement Shifts Going Alive

After going through the four phases of retirement, and you feel that you need to develop your retirement further, it’s time to find the path. Many stop here and enjoy their hobby as never before. That’s fine, because finding a true purpose and making your retirement meaningful and joyful is key.

But if you feel that the entrepreneurial string needs something else to be developed, there is a next step waiting for you: creating a business based on your passion.

In this video, I’ll explain what I did at age 62 and what has now given me a true purpose for waking up every single morning.

My journey of retirement shifts started with discovering purpose, and building a business around it transformed that purpose into a true passion that energizes my mornings.

“Purpose is the reason you journey. Passion is the fire that lights the way.”

-unknown

Retirement Shifts in a Nutshell

There are no shortcuts to a purposeful retirement. We all have to go through the four phases:

Vacation – do what you want and like
Identity loss – who are you now?
Experimentation – re-explore your hobbies and try new things
Reinvention of retirement – real changes turning purpose into passion

My retirement style is unique for me, and yours is unique for you. Don’t fall into the “copy/paste” trap. Dust off your old passions and add new things. This new chapter in life is entirely yours. Embrace it and start living the best part of your life…TODAY!

—